In 1997, a wave of layoffs from textile factories swept through the small town. As soon as thirty-two-year-old Shen Nanzhi lost her job, her husband's family put the divorce agreement on the dinner table. Her husband, Zhou Jiancheng, asked her to "bear with it for a while" because she was assigned a room in the work unit; her mother-in-law thought she had no income and would only bring her daughter to hold her back. Shen Nanzhi did not cry or make a fuss. He only held his 8-year-old daughter Shen Xiaoman and left the Zhou family with his layoff certificate, old account books and a little compensation.
No one thought she could turn around. But Shen Nazhi rented an abandoned canteen and put up a handwritten sign: Nanzhi Nursery.
At first, no one thought highly of her. The children sent in were also children that others found troublesome: Doudou, who was rejected by multiple child care centers, Niannian, who was rejected by her grandmother as a girl, A Liang, the child of a night shift worker, Ming Ming, who was transferred from a black-hearted nursery, and children from remarried families who no one wanted to take.
Shen Nanzhi does not simply take care of children. She saw the fear behind every child's naughtiness, the grievance behind their silence, and the helplessness behind their sensibleness. She used rules, meals, patience and sobriety to turn the old tuck shop into the most difficult nursery in the city.
Later, those who thought she "only knew how to take care of children" finally understood that she was raising not only children, but also her own dignity, career and support.
